The Cyberspaces Between Us
by Stardust's Revenge
Summary: Zachary "Crutchie" Morris is fine. Just fine. (Modern AU)


**Dedicated to my lovely editor, OstrichOnARampage.**

The screen on his phone flashed again, and Zachary "Crutchie" Morris fumbled to dig it out of his pocket after he dialed in the combination to his locker and extracted the small white box of painkillers. A new message had appeared from that doctor again, the one in San Francisco who knew just about everything concerning his poliomyelitis, so he swallowed the milky-white tablet and swiped at the halfway-transparent bar.

 _Hello, Crutchie. This is Doctor Williams, again-how is your leg doing? It's been eighteen hours since I last contacted you, so I hope your pain has cleared up somewhat._

His fingers fluttered across the miniature keypad in response.

 _Oh, I'm doing just fine! I just took one of those painkillers you gave me, so I shouldn't have too much trouble for the rest of the day. :)_

Crutchie hit "Send", then, as an afterthought,

 _Hey, how's that wife of yours doing? Say hi to her for me, okay? ;)_

Then, finally, he clicked his Iphone off and stuffed it in his pocket once more, glancing at the hallway clock again. 7:17. He had time before he had to get to Homeroom.

Just then, a deep voice came from behind him. "Zachary Morris! You know there are _no electronics_ allowed on campus during school hours!"

His heart pounded against his ribcage, and his shoulder blades tensed. Fighting the urge to let his stiff leg get the best of him, he straightened and turned around.

"With all due respect, Mr. Pulitzer, we ain't actually _in-_ Ay, Blink! Ya' nearly scared me to death!"

The blond teen laughed and threw his satchel to one shoulder.

"You shoulda' seen the look on your face, Crutch, it was like finding a deer in the headlights!" He paused to mimic a similar expression, earning him a half-hearted jab in the ribs. "So, who are you textin' anyway? Got a girlfriend?"

"I'll tell you as soon as my eyes can focus again and my nerves defrost! Dear lord, Blink-y, are you trying to kill me at fifteen?"

"Hey, lighten up! Besides, you already tried to point out that the day don't start 'till seven-thirty, so what's the problem?"

Kid Blink punctuated his question by swirling his styrofoam cup slightly with a nonchalant look. Crutchie eyed it with a minor jealousy.

"Is that cocoa? Where'd you get it? Or did you just pick up Starbucks before you got here and poured it into a styrofoam cup to make everyone think there's free sugar in the student caf?"

He put up his hands in mock-defeat, his left still holding the beverage.

"You got me, kid. There actually _is_ free hot chocolate in the cafeteria, and yes, I saved you one, thanks for asking. I _am_ the coolest friend a guy ever had, thank you!" With that note, he passed his friend a warm cup of the chocolate-y drink topped with whipped cream and pastel marshmallows. Crutchie took a sip and nodded his gratitude, his eyes brightening visibly. "Thanks, Kid Blink! This is...actually really good!"

Blink made finger-guns and shot them at him silently, giving him a wink. (Well, if a wink with a permanent squint still counted…) "Right, now how's about telling me who you were texting earlier? _Was_ it a girl? A guy? Your co-conspirator to take over the world? Jack? Some snazzy, all-knowing doctor? A sock monkey store?"

His friend almost choked on his hot chocolate.

"A-ha! So it _was_ a sock monkey store! I'm psychic!"

"Actually, I was just telling my trigonometry teacher that I completed the posterboard assignment early and asked if I could turn it in tomorrow instead of next week. What, you think I should get another sock monkey hat or something?"

"Heh. Maybe you should. I bet you could even get a sock monkey hoodie to match it."

"Lord, man. You're obsessed with sock monkeys, you realize?"

"Well, leave it to _you_ to turn in an assignment a week early. You're a good kid, Crutch."

On that parting sentence, he patted Crutchie's sock-monkey hat, then turned and trotted down the hallway, merging into the sea of students. Crutchie smiled to himself and headed down the hall again to his homeroom class, feeling only a hint of guilt.

#########################################################################

"Violet Taylor?"

A lanky dark-haired girl wearing a _Wicked_ shirt and faded blue jeans raised her hand.

"Here."

"David Jacobs?"

A boy with hazel curls wearing a button-up shirt and jeans raised his hand as well.

"Here."

"Spot Conlon...kid, I know that's not your real name. What is it, please? I'd be happy to call you by 'Spot' just as long as you give me your birth name for attendance."

A golden-haired delinquent wearing denim shorts and a black t-shirt reading 'Hi, I don't care, thanks' _,_ leaned back in his seat and put his hands behind his head.

"Who's to say my legal name _isn't_ Spot? It's on the attendance sheet, ain't it?"

Mr. Wiesel peered out from behind his clipboard and adjusted his glasses, glaring at the boy.

"Well, 'Spot' is in quotations here, and I honestly doubt that you write your name on your homework 'quote Spot unquote, Conlon."

He leaned over and scribbled something on his essay, then showed it to the substitute.

 _The Economy today as compared to the Industrial Revolution_

 _By "Spot" Conlon_

"I usually don't put the sarcasm on as heavily when signing, but I'm feeling generous today. And yes, the front office knows full well who I am, thank you very much. Here."

"Sarcasm. Wow. _That's_ original." muttered Mr. Wiesel, before reluctantly putting a checkmark next to Spot's name.

He continued with the remainder of the roll call, before finally asking for last night's essay. Faithfully, most of the students turned it into the front basket right away-except for one.

Crutchie pulled his crutch from the side of his desk and dug the assignment out of his bookbag, but just as he was walking to the front of the room, his legs gave way from under him. Immediately, a few of the nearby tenth-graders flocked around him, asking if he was okay, if he needed help, if he wanted one of them to help him back to his desk. Shakily, he got to his feet and hooked his fingers around the handgrip, muttering half-hearted apologies under his breath, trying to avoid falling again, because he knew someone would rush to his side, maybe even try to carry him bridal-style back to his seat.

He hated this feeling, the way of having everyone think he needed help just to walk a few meters.

The way of feeling like a crip.

He brushed himself off, tried to find his essay, instead realizing one of the others had turned it in for him. Well. _That_ was nice.

"Crutchie? Do you want help getting back to your desk, or can you manage?" asked a girl with red-and-blond streaked hair, a look of concern darkening her chestnut eyes.

"Nah, I got it. Thanks for offering, though!" he replied, flashing her a smile.

 _I can walk a few feet by myself, for heaven's sake, though. Or, at least, should be able to._

Mr. Wiesel stood on his desk and clapped his hands a few times to get everyone's attention.

"Settle down, settle down! Trust me, Zachary is fine, that floor is carpeted. I think he's tough enough to survive falling on his knees to a carpet without needing medical care. Has everyone turned in their essays?"

Everyone nodded, some adding a bored "Yeah" or unenthusiastic thumbs-up.

"Well then! Let's get on with the lesson, shall we?"

Crutchie chirped his solitary "Yup!" (As usual, the only one in the room) and limped back to his seat, taking out his notebook and pencil with interest.

###########################################################################

Crutchie put his weight onto one leg as he waited for the school bus to arrive. Raindrops trickled through the silvery-gray atmosphere and splattered his onyx locks, pasting them in place even as he tried to brush his wet bangs out of his eyes. Jack, nearby, wrapped his arms around his stomach in his fit of laughter.

"So ol' Mr. Brownie asks for Race's calculus homework, right?"

"Come on, Jack-y. I already told this one twice." Crutchie replied, trying and failing to keep a smile off his face.

"C'mon, humor me, Crutch. It's been a slow day. Most exciting thing that happened was Katherine breaking her pen in the middle of Journalism."

"Knowing Katherine, that actually sounds pretty funny. If I tell this one again, you have to tell me about her on the bus, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure. So c'mon, tell this one again for me!"

"Okay, so Mr. B. asks for Race's calculus assignment, and when he doesn't turn it in, he goes 'Did you do last night's assignment?' He kinda shrugs it off and replies, 'Did ya' grade my test?'. Mr. Brown is a little taken aback, so he just says, 'I have other tests to grade', and without missing a _beat,_ Race responds, 'I have other teacher's homework to do.'"

No more than a moment later, as if in response, the bus screeched to a halt before the station, and a group of teenagers clattered onto the vehicle, each finding their preferred seat within a few minutes and dropping their backpacks and satchels to the floor. Crutchie stepped up the first few steps and headed for his usual spot near the back (For a few reasons-plenty of room to lean his crutch under his seat, far away from the political issues of the Fanatics near the front, window view guaranteed), when midway down the aisle, an inflaming pain shot through his bad leg, like he had pulled a muscle or twisted it in the delicate inner workings of a blender.

A grimace crossed his face, and he winced at the shock, finally deciding to make it to his seat and text Doctor Williams. Though each step was an agony shocking a bolt of pain up his spine and each remaining glimpse of the distance made him curse internally and wish he hadn't left his last full pack of painkillers in his locker, Crutchie closed the gap as quickly as possible, putting his faith in the solid black Iphone sheathed in the Captain America phone case, the shred of hope in his front backpack pocket. Scooting to the far end of the long, upholstered seats, he dug into the zippered compartment, extracting the item from under a stash of odd pens, pencils, erasers, and the Ghiradelli chocolate squares he always kept on hand before giving his short, hurried response to his friend, who had slid in next to him.

"Listen, Jack, I hate to be rude, but I have to check my phone to see if-"

"Eh, don't worry about it, Crutchie. Ya' don't need my permission to see if someone contacted you back for your plans of becoming a supreme overlord and taking over the world." Jack ribbed, cracking a slight smile. The boy's eyes brightened slightly, and he gave a thumbs-up and tapped in the passcode.

 _Sophia is doing fairly well, (having a good time stitching her handmade Etsy stuffed toys) and she thanks you for asking! I don't suppose you've been taking those painkillers more than once every twelve hours, have you?_

He beamed at the glowing screen and texted his reply.

 _Nah, I stuck them all in my locker anyway, but my polio's been acting up a lot. You know I hate talking about my bad leg, but is it normal to feel searing pain midway through the day or completely lose control of your footing? Within a few hours of each other?_

Reluctantly, he hit the cyan "Send" button and turned to the teenager next to him.

"Sorry, I hate being that-guy-on-his-phone-while-others-are-there-™. So, you were talking about Katherine?"

"Oh, yeah! That pen Mr. Pulitzer gave her for her high Academic Achievement last year, remember the silver ballpoint with her name on it and replaceable ink jet?" He made certain to highlight each feature of said pen with a mock gasp of astonishment.

"Aw, Jack, she was really proud of that pen! That wasn't the one that broke, was it?"

"Nah, but when it fell off her desk and she leaned over to get it, some idiot stepped on it and threw the clicking-thingy all out of whack."

"You mean the clip, jacket, rachet, and plunger?" He took apart one of his own pens and pressed the broken parts into his palm.

"Yeah, but the ink cartridge was cracked too."

The midnight-haired boy winced slightly. "Oof."

"I know, right? So Katherine stands up and asks the fella' what he's doing, and he apologizes and helps her gather the parts, but doesn't actually fix the pen, so she's stuck tinkering with it herself. Anyway, she pulled out, I kid you not, a pencil pouch of spare pen parts, replaces the splintered-long clicking thingy-and just when she's trying to figure out if she has to replace or refill the ink, it splatters all over her hands."

"I'm sorry to say that was less exciting than I thought. Whatever happened to 'Improving the truth'?"

Jack pulled a pack of gum from his pocket and unwrapped one of the slim, silver-foiled rectangles, rolling it up and popping it in his mouth.

"Told ya' your day was more exciting than mine. I only have Race in World Economics, and he's got the best work of all of us." He offered the package to Crutchie, who took a stick gratefully.

"Well, you get college credits towards that Santa Fe Art-sy college if you get above a 95 in that course, right? How's your grade so far?"

Jack smirked and pulled a crumpled sheet from his pocket.

"98.7 last quarter, _Mom._ And hey, Santa Fe University of Art and Design is a really good school! Everyone's really friendly, they say there's a super-fast subway you can take every day to get there-yeah, Santa Fe's an excellent place to settle down and start a nice life! Who knows, _you_ might like it yourself, kid!"

"I still got a few more years of MHS to go, and besides, I'm not exciting enough for a grand life like that, Jax. You've got a girlfriend, dreams, charisma! I'm...working in some dreary, windowless cubicle in three or four years."

"Crutchie", he said, putting his hands firmly on his shoulders, "You are _far_ but ordinary. Now, you listen to me-you got the makings of greatness in ya', but you got to take the wheel and chart your own course! Stick to it, no matter what the scabbers say, and when the times comes and you get the chance to show what you're made of...well, I hope I'm there, catching some of the light off you that day."

"Was that a quote from something?"

"...Mayyyy-be?" Jack replied, his green eyes flashing with a hint of mischief as they shifted.

The bus screamed to a halt once more, and yet another person got off.

"Oh, and will you look at that! Two more stops until Medda's place! You coming?" Jack asked slyly, thumping Crutchie on the shoulder.

"You're avoiding the question, but yes, you know it!"

"Great! Here, take these." Jack said, cracking open a pack of glowsticks and handing them one at a time to him until he was adorned in the luminescent raver's envy, before finally tiling an equal number around his own wrists, elbows, ankles, and neck.

"Yeah! I'm guessing we're up to no good tonight?"

"You guess right. Bringin' the rave, block party, and way of eating purely food-truck food back. All at once."

"Bring it on."

The bus stopped again, and the starlet's rose-petal pink decor and Tuscan architecture instantly classified the stage as the trademark living style, theater memorabilia from her downtown career around every corner .

"Why, if it isn't the notorious Jack Kelly and Crutchie Morris! What misdemeanors have you two gotten into today?" she proclaimed after they rang the doorbell and stepped in, gathering them into a bear hug. Releasing the two from her embrace, she took a step back and gestured grandly to the expanse behind her.

"The Newsies are upstairs in the Bounce Lounge; oh, and Davey brought that little brother of his again, Les? Y'all go hug him for me again, will ya?" She said, beaming. Watching Jack turn to join the others, Crutchie started after him, then added his thanks for her directions as an afterthought.

"Will do, Miss Medd- _augh!"_ Crutchie replied, giving his typical salute when the muscles in his leg twisted again. He couldn't help the short hiss of pain that escaped him, the cry bubbling up from his throat when he turned, but still tried to keep his pain hidden, so nobody would worry, nobody would rush to come to him, and for once he could be something other than the "damsel in distress". Forcing a casual expression, he bit his tongue and leaned back on his crutch, fiddling absently with one of the glowing bands around his wrist.

"Say, Miss Medda, you wouldn't still happen to have those Snickers around, would you?"

Medda ruffled his hair affectionately and pointed him towards the glass-encased parlor.

"Crutchie Morris, I swear! Nobody is ever going to tame that sweet tooth of yours, will they?" she said with a wink, "Of course! I stocked the lounge just for you boys! Chocolate's in the glass jar on top of the filing cabinet." She dropped a curtsy, and from her sleeve, she pulled a single red rose. With a dramatic flourish, she moved her hand over it and it became a large combo candy, transforming as her hand went. Waving her hand behind her back, she took a step forward, knelt to the ground, and presented him with the treat the way a fiance would a ring.

He took it happily, stuffing it into the pocket of his hoodie and thanking her, making sure to compliment her act. Limping off to the lounge to join the others, Crutchie pressed his palm against the cool glass and dropped to one of the nearby beanbags.

"Heyyy, Crutchie's back! You ready to bring the party?" Spot called, throwing open the door from the back and crashing to one of the modern-style chairs.

"Oh, sure! What's the plan of action so far?" Crutchie responded, pointing finger-guns toward the blond.

"I'll tell you in exchange for another tidbit of information-what'cha got there?"

"Just a Snickers bar from Miss Medda-why, you jealous?"

"Admittedly so." Spot replied, throwing his hands up in a mockery of defeat, "But I should probably tell you where we're going before you decide that I am, indeed, deserving of all the chocolate as dark as night you've doubtless got up your sleeve. We're planning to hit the food trucks 'round Queens first-you know, the ones that come around by the art museums?-set up for said block party, then check out the rave in Brooklyn's own _underground basement_." The teenager ended with exaggerated gesticulations to highlight the location, earning him a playful knock to the shoulder from Racetrack.

"That sure sounds...eventful. Would now be a horrible time to mention that I got a few assignments to take care of before Monday and preferably not during the weekend?" the boy responded.

"Yes. Hit the five-AM bus or, better yet, just ski-"

" _Gee,_ what an _important_ point to bring up, Crutchie!" Dave said with enthusiasm, jumping up from his beanbag to elaborate, "YES, it _would_ be morally proper to _actually do our homework,_ rather than tearing it into shreds and taking a zero like _heathens!"_

"Alright, Lover-of-Calculus-One, what do _you_ propose we do, short of skipping the festivities?"

"Bring our bags _with_ us to the cholesterol, and possibly spend an hour or so studying, rather than discussing glow sticks and card tricks?"

" _Nerd alert!_ By a show of hands, how many of us here would prefer to waste a perfectly good Friday evening in Study Hall?"

A few mumbled replies of "It'd just take me half an hour" and "Better now than Saturday" went up, and reluctantly, Dutchy, Snitch, Kid Blink, and Mush raised their hands, along with Dave and Crutchie.

"Alright, alright, Fair point." Spot agreed, unenthusiastically swinging the strap of his bookbag over his shoulder, "Now, who wants to get into my car and work on tracing back the chemical content of phosphorus while we go get heart attacks at seventeen?"

The boys laughed and shuffled out of the room, a crowd of excitement for the retro partying ahead.

No one noticed Jack's hand as he slipped out his phone and scrolled through the healthcare website, skimming the pale blue page nonchalantly by appearance and desperately by heart.

####################################################################

 _Don't worry, you're fine! Muscular stiffness is, though seemingly unendurable, a regular condition of poliomeyelitis. It's still preferable that you only take one painkiller per day, though taking aspirin or other medications for other related symptoms like headaches is alright. While I realize this is unrelated, have you read any good books recently?_

 _-Doctor Williams_

 _That's a relief! And as for your other question, I just read a fantastic story - "It" by a Stephen King? We're reading "The Catcher in the Rye" in English, too, but I'm afraid I'm not as interested in that. :) :)_

 _-Crutchie_

 _I wouldn't expect you to be! To be honest, I found it a bit stuffy myself. What about favorite type of sandwich and cookie? Do children still like peanut butter and jelly?_

 _-Doctor W_

 _With all due respect, sir, I don't see what these questions have to do with your profession. I do enjoy peanut butter sandwiches, though-along with chocolate-chip cookies._

 _-Crutchie_

 _Well, you did mention you were in pain. Call me a quack, but it doesn't hurt so badly if you're focused on an outside conversation, does it? Though I believe I'm going to have to break the conversation a bit-you haven't experienced any feeling like muscular compression, have you?_

 _-Doctor W_

 _Ummm….what would it mean if I had?_

 _-Crutchie_

Across the table, Katherine keyed formulae into her graphing calculator, Dave scribbled dates madly across his palms, and Jack multitasked between writing out drag equations with one hand and stealing chips from Spot's stack of heavily-loaded nachos. With every glance at them, Crutchie tried to focus on the English analysis before him, but with each turn, found he couldn't.

" _What is the significance of the bitter almond taste in the tea at the cottage?"_ the page read. A simple question, especially for one who had unlimited knowledge at his fingertips. And yet his left hand kept straying to his hoodie pocket, pressing his fingertip to the glass screen for the vibration and warmth that let him knew he had a new text.

"Ay, Cheese nips, you gonna finish that packet within this century?" Blink joked, sliding over. The disabled Newsie shrugged him away and hunched over his packet.

"Eh, sorry, Blink. It's hard to focus."

"Have you turned off the Angry Birds notifications?" he said, grinning.

 _It means you might be suffering from anxiety, kid. Neurological pathways make it so the quadrecips femures tightens up and causes painful stiffness. Try to relax!_

 _-Doctor W_

Quicker than Crutchie could utter a cry of protest, Blink snatched the device from his fidgeting hand, still in his hoodie and instinctively swiping over the phone.

"Ha-HA! What's this, Crutchie, my boy? The game is afoo-"

And then his robin's egg-blue eyes flickered onto the screen.

And his bright eyes

darkened.

"What-Crutch, what is this? Anxiety? New-ro-logical? Since when have you ever been stressed out?"

"Can you just-" His voice cracked under the pressure, giving an accurate growling undertone to the high, cheerful voice the others were used to, "Can you just mind your own business? Please? Is that so hard to ask? It doesn't _concern_ you, so why do you give a _fudgemuffin_? You-you wouldn't dig into any of the other boys' life on a regular basis, would you?"

"Fudgemuffin? Dude, you've been spending too much time with the jubilant-but-crazy Queens kid. But I dig into everybody's lives. It's my thing. I want to see everybody happy, and this"-he said, holding up the Iphone-"This isn't it. So c'mon. What's up? Did you overdose on those pain meds? Get a C+ on the History exams? Can I get you anything-a drink, a candy bar, a-" he paused for a second to rummage in his pockets-"a Pilot G-207 pen, bottle cap, or receipt?"

Blink tensed again, watching for the slight smile Crutchie would have, the post-lame-gag, 'That joke was really bad, but I enjoyed the effort and just how bad it was" quip, but his face remained as miffed as he had been a second ago, his eyes the same shade of gray. The teenager attempted to put his hand on his shoulder and took a shot for "Hey. That was kind of an inappropriate time. But seriously, man, I'll be here for whatever you need."

He was cut off at "be here" by his friend's fist, socking him hard across the jaw and leaving him wide-eyed.

"I. Don't. Need. To. Be. Taken. Care. Of."

Crutchie was breathing hard, frustrated tears reddening the skin around his eyes as he watching Kid Blink's hand go to his jaw instinctively. Astonishingly enough, the fight hadn't attracted much attention aside from the halfhearted glances and "Dude, what did he do?" muttered amongst the crowd.

"Crutch, what the-" he stammered.

The freckled boy wasn't usually one to regret decking someone only a second afterwards, but he did now. "Sorry, Blink, that was...unnecessary. I just-yeah. I hate it when people do stuff like that.", he stammered uncertainly.

"Alright, awesome. Friendship is magic. But I'll only give your phone back if you tell me who it was who was texting you."

In retrospect, it wouldn't have been too hard to admit it. Admit to everything. Admit to the doctor in San Francisco, admit that his polio was worse than just a slight disturbance, admit that he didn't know how to reach a future he couldn't see.

But he didn't. Instead, he chose to sweep the problem under the rug like so many others and weave it into the net of other lies he had to take care of.

"Nobody special, just a friend on Bloggr."

"I don't believe you. Do you want to _actually_ tell me, or would you prefer I snitch your passcode from your cards and see for myself?"

"Keep it. I'll use the library computers."

Kid Blink's blue eyes burned into his back and watched as Crutchie wordlessly packed up his notebooks and assignments.

The cell phone made its way back into his bag's side pocket before they left the park.

It was 12:48 at night, and Crutchie Morris officially had no clue what to do with his life.

With every step at the rave, with every Electronica song that played across the deafening speakers, he fiddled with the glowing bands and fixed his shirt and relaxed, but every time, it seemed more as if his leg were being run through by a thousand volts of pulsing electricity, stitched, mangled to pieces and pulled apart by wild foxes, which only made him fidget more and think about the last message-how his pain was determined by his stress levels- and think about what was wrong with the way he was.

He didn't need this.

They didn't need _him._

They didn't need his medications, his crutches tripping them up, his crazy ramblings and any of the drawbacks that would have happened if he weren't…

Weren't born this way. It wasn't charming. It was a drawback. As much of a drawback to the others as it was to him, and why couldn't he _stop_ thinking this _negativity,_ WHY

Why?

He curled up under the benches and hiked his hoodie over his head, took a sip of the fizzing punch, and felt his phone buzz for what would be the final time that night.

 _Hello, Crutchie? How are you doing so far?_

 _It appears that your condition may be a little bit more serious than_

That was it. That was all there was.

He tucked the phone in his pocket and took another bite of the multilayered, rainbow-colored, thickly-frosted cake. It was sweet and sugary, and the raspberry icing definitely went well with the-was that a blue-watermelon cake layer? It was hard to focus with the pain inflaming his leg, as if he'd been caught in a fire and forced to jump onto a bed of razors.

Jack sat down on the bench, slid over, and sat on the floor beside him. Wordlessly, Crutchie felt something small, warm, and circular pressed into his hand.

The agony in his leg had reached levels of, during which, Crutchie Morris would have been very happy to die.

And everything hazed, gradually, from a blurry view-as if he were viewing it through fogged-up glass-to darkness.

When he got up again, he was in the back of a darkened vehicle, spacious, and he appeared to be laying down on a rough canvas cot. He tried to sit up, but found he was belted into place, preventing him from getting more than about forty-five degrees. In the din of the early morning, he heard soft, murmuring voices from the front seats.

 _How long has your friend had this disability?_

"I don't know. All his life, I guess. It hasn't gotten this out-of-whack since November, though."

 _Mr. Kelly, would you mind telling us a little bit more about what's happened over these past few months? How he gauges his pain, any physical limitations he might have had, any useful information?_

The second voice took a deep, shuddering, breath and replied in a familiar hard tone, the same tone Jack always used to disguise a cold, difficult truth.

"He...he tried to roll with it, and he didn't like other people treating him like a little kid, so we all just kind of went with it. But then around mid-November, we got this really difficult test in History, ten percent of our grade and all that. So there I am, having Dave-one of my other friends-quiz me on the fall of Constantinople, when I saw Crut-Zach, pouring four or five painkillers into his hand and gulping them like a starving dog.

I told him to slow down, and he just...he went all silent. The kid just nodded a little bit, put the box back in his locker, shifted his bad leg a bit, and winced. And I don't mean 'winced' like, 'I didn't need to know that', closer to the lines of 'I've been hit with a sledgehammer and my entrails have been torn out slowly and eaten by foxes, but if I yell, I'm going to be in hot water.'"

 _That's a fairly descriptive mental image._

"Well, that's what it looked like. You know a guy awhile, you start to recognize his thought process. Anyway, it seemed to get progressively worse over the next few days, but I think the last straw was when I went to check my bandanna in the bathroom-because my girl said it looked filthy, but it's hard to tell-and all of a sudden, you could hear this retching sound-kind of like a jet engine? So then Zachary hops out, washes his hands, kinda scrubbed at his eyes, and said softly, 'I'm going to die.' He wasn't saying that the way some folks just say it with any occasion-there weren't any tests, or big projects, or girls he was going to ask out, or bad situation with his parents, or none of that. He genuinely believed he was going to die from whatever it was he had.

So then he just breathed hard for a few seconds, and...collapsed to the floor. Call me foolish, call us fags, I've heard it all, but I took his hand and waited while he calmed down enough to gulp down his problems, start chewing this strongly-scented mint gum, nod silently to me and head out the door. Zach, he always acted like everything was alright, even when it wasn't. When he said those last four words, that's when things really went from bad to worse."

 _Poliomyelitis symptoms usually don't get this harsh. Are you sure that was it? Any history of heart failure or possible types of cancer in his bloodline?_

"God, you think I know? You aren't going to tell me he's had cancer this whole time, are you?"

 _Well...possibly. With no birth and medical records to either prove or disprove any diagnosis, we'd usually be quite hesitant..but it's possible your friend has osteomyelitis._

"And that is…?"

 _Infection of the bones. It's extremely rare, but all of the described symptoms-nerves going awry suddenly, sudden convulsions or vomiting, etc., all are common symptoms of osteomyelitis. Of course, keep in mind that this is mainly a blind guess, but we're definitely going to need to take him in and perform a further analysis._

"What?" Jack asked, as soon as Crutchie thought the same thing. Why was he going to the hospital? What had happened the night of the party? And where in the world was his backpack?

Crutchie leaned to his side to look for it-nothing particularly special, after all, just an ordinary habit; after all, living amongst delinquents for the worst three weeks of his existence had ingrained the awareness of his belongings, at all times, into his mind-but he found the canvas bag opposite him on the lower section of a bookshelf. Leaning over to reach it, a button fell out of his hand-flat and tin, like so many other buttons for elections, movies, or bands-and when he picked it up again, he saw a sun with etched lines above, below, and on either side of it, brilliant red sunbeams of light.

Santa Fe.

They had taken his crutch at the doorway, taken it and given him a wheelchair sturdy enough to support a yak instead, but he didn't mind so much the effort to wheel himself anywhere as he did the _restriction_ of it. Two weeks of endless repetition had gone past, though he could never quite get used to the blood tests every morning, the wait for the newsies to bring him the day's workload, and how _boring_ everything seemed in general without the day's crazy antics. He was outside, creating a miniature birdhouse for the simple release of energy in his hands, a minute away from threading twine through it once he realized that he'd have to ask somebody else to put it up to a tree branch he could easily climb up onto if he still had the use of his good leg.

Criminy.

"Mr. Zachary? You have a visitor!" trilled the voice of the honeysuckle attendant all too suddenly accenting her announcement with a sweep of her hand before glancing at his project, grabbing a sheet of sandpaper from a higher shelf, passing it down to him, and trotting off with an echo of clicking high heels on the sanitized tile floor inside.

Jack Kelly stood before him, his expressions the same cocky smile as always. "Hey, kid. Mind if I sit down?"

Crutchie set the small house onto the thick handrail of the deck and wiped his hands on his shirt.

"Well", he said, gesturing to his wheelchair, "Nobody asked me if _I_ wanted to, so if you can decide for yourself, you're a step better off than I."

Jack grinned and pulled a chair opposite his by the small wooden table, various designs and signatures etched in it. He ran his finger along the grooves and fixated on them intently as he gave his next words.

"Yeah, this place is awful. But, eh...remember that doctor guy who asked too many questions to the wrong people?"

"Doctor Will-wait, what? I never told anybody that...did you go through my phone? Jack, that ain't right!"

Jack slid a cell phone from his pocket across the table, texts pulled up. The green-and-white bubbles reenacted the same conversation he'd had over the last few weeks, but from the sender's perspective of Doctor Williams himself.

"I knew you'd recognize the number, so I had it changed. It was dumb, I know, but you just looked so scared and so helpless and…" his breath hitched in his throat, and for the first time in years, tears brimmed in his eyes, "I just wanted you to breath again, kid."

"So.." Crutchie started out, sanding the roof of the birdhouse absently, " _You_ were the one who told me I was okay, even though it turned out I had some sort of fatal infection. _You_ were the one who said everything was alright, and who kept checking in to make sure I hadn't chugged half of my medications, and _you_ were the one who tried to cheer a fellow up even when everything took a turn for the worse."

"Yeah. That's me."

"Jack Kelly, you are a beautiful demon of a person." he chuckled softly, "What was the button for?"

"Well...the thing is, only one in around fifty thousand guys survive. And for a while, I thought, if you could be the one in a thousand to get polio, and if you could be the one in a million to get oste-whatnot, you could be the one in a thousand million to recover, right?"

Crutchie took his hand across the table. "Jack, it's alright."

Jack didn't look up. His eyes fixated on the wooden table, afraid to glance and see the greatest mistake he'd ever made-for the first time in his life, _petrified_ of the consequences that couldn't be skipped over or avoided.

"Well, I didn't plan your stats well enough, I guess. I saw your IV readings, Crutch. Based on the steady pattern of worsening symptoms,you ain't gonna live long. I-I screwed up big time, kid. I'm sorry. The button was, I guess, a last resort-since, y'know, you'll never make it to Santa Fe. Honestly, I wouldn't blame you if you had it incinerated, or whatever they do here with junk you don't want."

Crutchie's eyes brightened softly for the last time.

"You see this, Jack?" he said, gesturing to the birdhouse, "This isn't anything grand, but when I get it up in that tree, over there-" Crutchie continued, pointing to a strong hickory with plentiful shade and slender, curving branches, "That's where all of the bluebirds and robins hit, day after day. And this-" he held up the button, Santa Fe's golden sun almost shining on the surface "This is a dream that ought to be seen, isn't it?"

He applied a dot of superglue to the backside of it, then fastened it directly above the entrance to the birdhouse. "Now, you got an audience. Would ya' mind tying it above that knothole there?"

Jack beamed and put it up, throwing a leg over the lower branches to reach the uppermost. Finally, the stars fell into the indigo night and he trotted back to his chair, squinting to see the small impact on the gargantuan tree- little but significant, for sure.

"It sure looks nice up there, kid."

"Well, you did help get it for the memories, Jack." the freckled boy said finally, gripping his leg in his lap but with that invincible smile on his face, the last glimmers of starlight dancing across his chestnut-brown eyes.

The inflaming pain hit Crutchie again, but for once, he didn't care. Conclusively, the lights, the rebellion, the fun times, and everything that made his eyes sparkle with delight

Ended.

He took in one final breath, and, like a fairy-tale maiden going to sleep for a thousand years, he hugged his knees to his chest and closed his eyes. When Jack took his pulse, it faded quickly, then resounded with silent oblivion.

The optimistic, ever-laughing glow was gone from the boy's heart. The seventeen-year-old twisted the hem of his shirt around his hand until it turned white with the pressure, hot tears pooling in his eyes and dripping down his face in rivulets, streaks of what had been lost.

Beside him, Crutchie's cold gaze still rested on the button, the smile still touching his face, but it wasn't the same, it would never be the same, the glimmer that had always been present was _gone._ And Jack had done it.

He should have known.

Crutchie Morris was more than a friend. Looking back on it, he was the right-hand guy, his cheer, his brother.

One might even say he was a shooting star, dissolved into the final remnants of stardust.

The teenager stood up and ruffled his onyx locks a final time.

"You too, Crutchie. Thank you."

With those parting words, he turned and tucked the acceptance letter from Santa Fe in his own pocket, then stepped into the evening sky and walked away.


End file.
